Everything Laura Marling touches seems to turn to gold. Her past romantic liasons have both preceded breakthrough musical success, first for ex-boyfriend Charlie Fink and Noah and the Whale, and then for current beau Marcus Mumford of the eponymous Mumford and Sons. She was also [ahem] instrumental in the rise of Emmy the Great, and modest initial success for her debut album ‘Alas I Cannot Swim’ has built into a devoted critical following and a growing fanbase. She’s now just days away from releasing a second album, and because she’s a smart cookie, she’s previewing it through the Times’ website here. If you like what you hear, you can pre-order ‘I Speak Because I Can’ on Amazon here. Imagine a young, less squeaky Joni Mitchell who could give Feist a decent bout in the song-writing ring and you’re pretty much there…
Since Damon Albarn and Jamie ‘Tank Girl’ Hewlett’s collaborative cartoon band Gorillaz were nice enough to give YouTube an exclusive on the video for their new track ‘Stylo’, YouTube have let their fictional bassist Murdoc Niccols curate a post on their Celebrity Playlist section. The mask slips a little bit, and Murdoc’s voice betrays him as an excitable 40 year old man, rather than a sharp-toothed ego-bass-maniac. Some of the videos are nice, like the clip from Jacques Cousteau’s ‘Silent World’, and others are revealing, like the dressing room rehearsal of “Hip Hop”, by Mos Def and my favourite colliery band/rap mashup group, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble (who you should definitely check out on dino-space here). Anyway, here’s the clip – and no, Charlie Bit Me isn’t on there, odd, considering the teeth thing.
Not content with the 3 albums they’ve released over the last 12 months (BlackRoc, Auerbach’s solo album – Keep It Hid, and Carney’s Drummer), the Black Keys are dropping another album on the 18th of May, with a tour to accompany it, obviously.
A track listing doesn’t mean much withouth accompanying sounds, so make some grungy blues noises in your head as you read this:
Brothers
01 Everlasting Light
02 Next Girl
03 Tighten Up
04 Howlin’ for You
05 She’s Long Gone
06 Black Mud
07 The Only One
08 Too Afraid to Love You
09 Ten Cent Pistol
10 Sinister Kid
11 The Go Getter
12 I’m Not the One
13 Unknown Brother
14 Never Gonna Give You Up
15 These Days
Indie innovators Broken Social Scene have announced the release of a new album after a five year wait. Released on the 4th of May this year, Forgiveness Rock Record will be the band’s 5th full album release – and Feist is back in the mix, as well as members of Pavement, Do Make Say Think and cerebral songsmiths Cake. You can download a sample track fro their website by giving them your email address, and if you like what you hear, then they’re touring the new album in the USA and Europe – dates below.
Sunday March 14th, 2010 Elkton, FL Harvest Of Hope Festival
Thursday March 18th, 2010 Austin, TX Stubbs BBQ
Friday March 19th, 2010 Austin, TX The Parish
Saturday May 1st, 2010 San Francisco, CA The Fillmore
Monday May 3rd, 2010 Los Angeles, CA Henry Fonda Theatre
Friday May 7th, 2010 New York, NY Webster Hall Thursday May 13th, 2010 London, UK Brixton Academy Friday May 14th, 2010 Minehead @ Butlins, UK All Tomorrow’s Parties (Matt Groening curating) Saturday May 15th, 2010 Brighton, UK The Great Escape Monday May 17th, 2010 London, UK Heaven
Tuesday May 18th, 2010 Amsterdam, Netherlands Melkweg
Wednesday May 19th, 2010 Cologne, Germany Burgerhaus Stollwerck
Friday May 21st, 2010 Paris, France La Maroquinerie
Sunday May 23rd, 2010 Linz, AUT LinzFest
Monday May 24th, 2010 Berlin, Germany Kesselhaus
Thursday May 27th, 2010 Barcelona, Spain Primavera Sound Festival
Saturday May 29th, 2010 George, WA Sasquatch Festival
Saturday June 19th, 2010 Toronto, ON Olympic Island
In an interview with the LA Times, the guitar burning rock idol’s stepsister Janie Hendrix said that not only will there be a new album released this year, named “Valleys of Neptune” (based on recordings made in the early months of 1969), but that much more of his back catalogue has been licensed to feature in the next version of the game Rock Band. For some this is enough to suggest a full out branding exercise after the manner in which the Beatles were splashed all over the previous edition.
The game’s creators, Harmonix, were more reserved in their statement to Joystiq;
“While we have not made any official announcements regarding Jimi Hendrix and Rock Band, we are excited to say that we are in discussions to bring more of his music to our platform,”
If you haven’t seen the Record Club project that is being run over on Mr. Hansen’s website, it’s worth a look. He’s collecting transient teams of highly talented and professional musicians and jamming out ‘covers’ of classic albums in a day. The tracks thus produced are then breathed on and released weekly in video format through the site. The current slew of tunes is from Skip Spence’s album OAR, and includes some [I think] really interesting stuff. This strange upbeat video is called ‘Lawrence of Euphoria’, reminiscent of some of the punchier stuff from early in Beck’s career, but there are also tracks like “All Come To Meet Her”, which positively reeks of Fleet Foxxes, and “Weighted Down”, which has got Feist’s imprimatur all over it. Lovely stuff.
This collaborative project is bearing fruit from different branches – funk/soul producer Jamie Lidell’s new album will feature both Leslie Feist and Beck, whom he worked with on the Record Club project. Nice to see they’re building stuff together, and that success breeds creativity. All Beck’s videos are available on his Vimeo channel here: http://vimeo.com/videotheque
We blogged about the release of Hot Chip’s new album ‘One Life Stand’, which we thought was pretty cool, and now they’ve been interviewed on London’s X-FM discussing their development of the album and how they work together as a band: you can stream the interviews here, and stream the album here.
Rumours (originating at the blog ‘Postmark Here’) are spreading over the web about a wrap party that went down [to use the vernacular] in Hollywood last week:
Bryan helped transform a house in the Hollywood Hills into a recording studio and spent the last three weeks there recording Radiohead with Nigel Godrich. On Saturday, we waded through a driveway full of Priuses and Minis to get to the wrap party.
Utterly unsubstantiated, of course, but if true, we can start hoping for a new release sometime in the next few months. The band will have to be very smart to top the buzz they created with their last release, and converting buzz to sales is another thing entirely.
The blog post over at Postmark Here has been removed, which makes this blogger think someone requested it be taken down… No smoke without fire.
basically, we’re back. and going on tour in a few months. so we’re packing up our lives and getting progressively better at packing light and working with airmiles, etc. and i guess gathering gear and practice and all the other crap that comes with putting on this broadway musical called “lcd soundsystem” (jazz haaands!).
otherwise it’s the same. i (james) miss playing live a bit, which means it was a GOOD idea to take an extra year between these records. now i can finally get rid of that pesky life i was living and actually live from april on in either a bus, plane, stage or hotel room. sometimes i can go out to eat, too.
…
um, so… we’re going on tour.
Great news, as far as we’re concerned – dates below, more details on venues here.
16 Apr 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem indio, California
20 Apr 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem dublin
21 Apr 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem dublin
23 Apr 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem london
24 Apr 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem london
24 Apr 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem birmingham
27 Apr 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem leeds
28 Apr 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem glasgow
29 Apr 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem glasgow
1 May 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem manchester
2 May 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem bristol
4 May 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem amsterdam
5 May 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem brussels
8 May 2010 20:00 lcd soundsystem paris
Hot Chip are previewing their new album ‘One Life Stand’ over on the Guardian’s website (unfortunately only fully available in the UK), via We7’s streaming service.
The album itself is a return to their previous form, mixing heavily electronic beats and samples with roomy, live sounding instruments at will, but always with delicate care and attention, Baroque sounding string synths, trashy Pixies-esque drum kits, steel drums, marimbas[?], vocoders [ sorry Justin ], and flagrantly dance sounding bass lines nestle in together under the distinctive semi-falsetto vocals rising above the tracks, blending elements of electronic music from the last two decades together in a disctinctively stylish way.
Hot Chip may not have the bass-thumping force of other electronic acts like Simian Mobile Disco and the Chemical Brothers, but this album drips energy and musicality. Check out the video of the album’s title track they’ve posted on their Dino-space – if you like it you might consider catching them on their current tour, visiting most regions of the UK before moving on to Europe and America, full listings below.
You can also pre-order the album from their website, getting yourself a free bonus track in the process (but sadly obviating the need for a digital distributor, ho hum…)
Everything Laura Marling touches seems to turn to gold. Her past romantic liasons have both preceded breakthrough musical success, first for ex-boyfriend Charlie Fink and Noah and the Whale, and then for current beau Marcus Mumford of the eponymous Mumford and Sons. She was also [ahem] instrumental in the rise of Emmy the Great, and modest initial success for her debut album ‘Alas I Cannot Swim’ has built into a devoted critical following and a growing fanbase. She’s now just days away from releasing a second album, and because she’s a smart cookie, she’s previewing it through the Times’ website here. If you like what you hear, you can pre-order ‘I Speak Because I Can’ on Amazon here. Imagine a young, less squeaky Joni Mitchell who could give Feist a decent bout in the song-writing ring and you’re pretty much there…
Loading ...
